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Specialists of the Engineering Centre of Samara University have developed a virtual educational platform for studying the structures of aircraft and rocket engines. The software package created allows you to study the structure and operation of engines in more detail and visually on the basis of their accurate 3D models placed in virtual reality. The development is intended for teaching not only students of specialties for profiles. It can also be used as part of vocational guidance for schoolchildren and to improve the professional level of employees of propulsion engineering enterprises.
"Our project goal is to create new learning opportunities, a kind of new educational tool using which you can study in detail and visually in virtual reality the internal structure of various engines, down to the smallest details. This is much more efficient than studying engines from drawings in the old-fashioned manner. Based on our software platform, 3D models of engines can be disassembled and assembled, put virtual engines into operation and monitor the work processes inside them, identify possible malfunctions and even replace defective parts. There are several levels of complexity and detail of the display - from the simplest level for schoolchildren to professional, designed for specialists of enterprises. The platform is designed to be universal and publicly available – it's like a virtual reference book or textbook with ‘living’ illustrations, and any user of the platform can add their pages to this textbook for themselves - for example, a higher education institution or an enterprise will be able to upload their 3D models of the engines, by which they specialize, in to the program," the director of the Engineering Centre Ivan Zubrilin said.
According to him, the platform currently provides for the study of gas turbine, liquid rocket and piston engines. These are the main areas, but in the future the software package can be modified and expanded to study other types of engines. The development was carried out by the Engineering Centre together with the Institute of Artificial Intelligence under the Samara University and AR SOFT Samara company. The basis for the platform creation was a virtual simulator developed earlier in the Engineering Centre for training future engineers and designers of aircraft engines. VR glasses and controllers are used to dive into the virtual environment and manipulate 3D models. Users will be able to connect to the public platform via the Internet.
"The platform is ready for use from technical and functional point of view, so now we are completing the final touches. This development can be called unique. Various Russian enterprises, of course, use separate virtual reality modules for a number of complex engines, but these modules are designed for the maintenance and repair of these specific assemblies, that is, these modules are not universal and they are usually difficult to use for educational purposes for students and especially for schoolchildren. Our platform is primarily focused on educational tasks, we immerse the learning process in a virtual environment, and at that this platform is universal, you can add many different assemblies to it and modify it for your educational or production tasks," Ivan Zubrilin emphasized.
Using the platform, specialists of enterprises will be able at their professional level not only to study the ‘anatomy’ of some new, previously unfamiliar engines, but also to work out certain technological operations for assembly and disassembly of assemblies, taking into account the correct order of use of tools and compliance with safety standards.
"In this project, the hardware load is optimized as much as possible, since in the VR space it is very important to combine performance speed and quality of rendering. But at that the physical properties of engine parts and assemblies have been worked out in a quality manner," the director of AR SOFT LLC Andrey Savelyev added.
"Currently, 3D models of several engines are placed in the virtual space of the platform for testing. In the coming months, models of the main engines studied at the university will be uploaded to the platform, including digitized exhibits of the Aviation Engines History Centre (CIAD) under the Samara University. CIAD has the world's largest collection of Soviet and Russian gas- turbine engines, all types of jet aircraft engines are represented here. In addition to aircraft engines, the collection also has assemblies designed for helicopters, missiles and even tanks," the head of the VR development project in propulsion engineering of the Engineering Centre Ilya Leikovsky added.
"Our University has not only the largest collection of real engines ‘made from iron’, but also the largest collection of their virtual 3D models, which were created in different years by employees and students. Now these virtual models will be included in the system of our platform and will be available for all users to study," Ivan Zubrilin said.
For reference
The Engineering Centre under the Samara University being a higher education institution-member of the national project ‘Science and Universities’ was established in 2021 based on the results of the open competition for grants in the form of subsidies from the federal fund for establishment and development of engineering centres in Russia arranged by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation. The Samara University made it to the list of 11 first priority winners of the competition. The victory had become possible due to well-coordinated work with participants of the global scale REC consortium "Engineering of the Future" and the support provided to the Engineering Centre personally by Dmitry Igorevich Azarov, the Governor of the Samara Region.
The Engineering Centre priority areas of work include development of digital intelligent technologies for mechanical engineering, development of digital twins, promising gas-turbine engines and plants, as well as development of additive technologies and industrial robotics, training and re-training of high-grade specialists for propulsion engineering enterprises of Russia.
The Engineering Centre is developing in close cooperation with its strategic partner – ODK (United Engineering Corporation)-Kuznetsov PJSC. The projects implemented here will be key elements of the research program for development of REC "Engineering of the Future" in terms of technological and educational initiatives of the Propulsion Engineering platform.
